Most liked posts in thread: UK Energy Needs

One of my neighbours has a ground sourced heat pump system which was installed (not retrofitted) when the house was converted about 6-7 years ago. According to the builder, it didn't cost much more than a conventional gas powered hesting system. They have underfloor heating and the heating is brilliant. It runs almost constantly during the winter months and is still apparently very cheap to run. The only downside to speak of is the extensive maintenance required every year (far more than a convential gas boiler) and that the water isn't sufficiently hot for showers, baths etc. It has to be augmented with an additional electrical 'immersion heater' which heats up the water to a much higher temp.

Another neighbour looked at having a similar ground system installed (they already have underfloor heating) but were put off initially by the cost of the ground source system itself which was in excess of £20k. Theirs is a big house and they have the luxury of land surrounding the property. I can't imagine many in the future will be retrofitting ground sourced systems in most parts of the country!

I'm personally waiting for green hydrogen to arrive to be supplied through our existing gas supply network.

 

I live in an old Georgian era house. The rear of the house is where our current boiler is fitted. Outside is a right of way to two other houses, so it may not be possible to fit one if it impinges on the access route. There are a lot of old terrace houses, which don’t have land outside the building, where an external air heat source pump could be located.

A couple of weeks ago I spent some time in West London. The number of Tesla and other electric vehicles was staggering. They have charging points in W2, on a vast number of lamp posts, however I would estimate that there are five/six parking spaces between each lamp post! Again where there is high density accommodation (flats/terraces) the ability to charge vehicles is limited to say the least.

 

The big problem with wind is the footprint needed. Not only do you need them spaces far enough apart so they don't crash into each other but the turbulence from each can impact how efficiently each works so the more you place the worse they all perform. Supposedly the ideal between limiting space use and keeping efficiency as high as possible means placing them on average 1/3rd of a mile away from each other. The bigger they are the more you have to space them out, the smaller the closer. There is also the ecological issues, while there are some animals that thrive around them there are others the noise can scare them off and the blades can also pose a threat. For example in Scotland there has been a fair few deaths of the bigger Birds of Prey, especially Golden Eagles, White-Tailed Eagles and Buzzards around wind farms. The more turbines you have and the bigger area they take up then the greater that threat is

As for the bigger size needing less wind to create energy, that's not that unusual. Anyone who has ever built a PC or been involved in building any electronics will tell you that the bigger the fan you put in the slower you have to run it to create the required airflow and this is just the reverse of that as it's about the surface area, the bigger the surface area the more air it can catch so it spins it spins it easier than one with less surface area. As above though the problem is the bigger you go the more space you need and that's where so many large scale renewables have issues, they just need too much space needed with the ecological issues they bring that you can't just decide to replace conventional energy production with them on a whim.

As you mentioned IMHO we have been missing a trick for decades now. If at the very least for the last decade or two every house builder had been required to put solar panels onto roofs. And couple that with better government incentives for existing homes to install them, even when they were giving grants the after grant price was beyond most peoples reach. That increase in demand would have driven prices down, making more people able to afford them thus increasing demand further and driving down the costs further and if we were then one of the countries which had the most solar panels on homes and business in the world then that's a decent amount of energy produced without resorting to as many expensive, large and ecologically problematic renewable farms

 

Absolutely.

 

Apologies I didn't touch on the ecological issues regarding the batteries; I accept there is an impact with their production. Perhaps the solid state batteries currently being developed will improve matters.

However, examination of 5 to 6 year old Zoes has returned typical degredation of 4% or 5% and other similar cars have returned similar figures (Nissans don't do as well due to their lack of thermal management). And early 10 year old Zoes are still returning very healthy figures. This is why a number of manufacturers have significantly extended their battery warranties, as the real life results are now far exceeding early expectations.

Oh and the problem with European Eagle Owls not being accepted onto Category A (or C) of the British List (that is not being accepted as wild birds) is a complex one.

As for the IoW White-Tailed Eagles, I was lucky enough to see G466 last month, as it crossed Staffordshire.

And don't get me started on problems with shooting estates and gamekeepers but, if it's of any interest to you, I suggest getting yourself a copy of 'Inglorious' by Mark Avery.

 

Some of the batteries currently in development have a claimed range of over a million miles, I don't think the recharge time for one of those is going to be a major issue.